1 - Australia

We had a lot of time to kill waiting on our long-haul flight to Sydney...so we decided to take an Uber car over to the closest beach - Manhattan beach - for some sightseeing.   I had read it was only 5 miles away....well, it is only 5 miles away but it took about 20 minutes to get there!   Not complaining as we were definitely not in a hurry.  But I'm not sure I'd recommend the trip for folks who have limited time.

 It was a beautiful but cloudy day.  Temps were in the low 70's.  Beautiful, clean beach and lovely little downtown area.  We were surprised that it wasn't more crowded on a Sunday afternoon.

Nice public pier.

Pretty aqua colored water -  jam packed housing on the hills above the beach though.  Bet it's pretty pricy!

I had to take off my shoes and take a dip in the Pacific  (note that I had put on a sweater at this point since it was breezy and a bit chilly)

We wandered around - had a bite to eat - and watched a pretty sunset across the ocean.

Luckily, we were both "TSA Pre-Check" for this flight....so we breezed back thru security screening. That's particularly lucky since Sunday evening is apparently a very busy time at the airport.


On the walk back thru the airport, I saw this lovely mural on the wall.  I coerced Duane to snap my photo in front of it - looks like I was up on the Hollywood hill, doesn't it?

We'll be boarding the plane at about 2AM east coast time - it will probably be a day or so before I'm next online!